What are the psychosocial issues for the person in the case study?

 This assessment provides you with the opportunity to examine the issues, available services and treatments for people living with a specific mental health illness.
1. What are the psychosocial issues for the person in the case study?
2. What informal supports
are available to the person?
3. What professional and/or agencies are involved or likely to be involved with the person?
4. What are the gaps in service delivery
for people with this mental health illness?
5. What advocacy needs to
happen for people with
this mental health issue?

Case study

Mark has been an excellent student throughout high school. He has been captain of the cricket team and very popular amongst his class mates and teachers.
Last year things seemed to fall apart. His grades fell and he didn’t seem to be able to concentrate on study. His mother was concerned and took Mark to the local GP who couldn’t really see what was wrong. He gave Mark an antidepressant drug and said he would like to see Mark in a couple of months.

The antidepressant didn’t seem to help much. Mark’s mother noticed a few other things. Mark seemed to have some odd thoughts – he said he could hear things and became upset when she told him she couldn’t hear them. Mark became more withdrawn and stopped going out with his friends. He spent a lot of time in his room. His mother thought perhaps he was studying but he wouldn’t talk to her about what his school work was about. Sometimes Mark is quite animated. He talks excitedly about science projects and says he has some unique ideas but that he can’t talk about them in case someone steals them. Mark has done well in science so his mother thinks he probably does have some good ideas but is puzzled as to why he won’t talk about his ideas.

His mother doesn’t know what to do or where to go for help. His exams are coming up and she is concerned that he doesn’t seem to be studying or focussing.